Proactive Teshuva: Paradigms from Maimonides and Rav Kook - Rabbi Anthony Manning

good evening everybody thank you so much for coming and thank you to the OU for uh organizing such a a wonderful evening this is my first time in uh OU modin uh it's nice to see some of the modin friends uh people who live locally yeah exactly give it a shout out there um and uh nice to see family as well my brother-in-law sister-in-law here um and uh I really I want to talk to you a little bit about Chua now you might think that's not really very novel because that's what Rabbi stand up talk about uh this time of year but I don't know about you but I get a little bit frustrated uh in L uh I I'm I'm sort of faced with this reality that I'm meant to be undergoing a process of Chua and one of the frustrating things I don't know about you what I find is that I end up having to kind of do Chua for the same things that I did Chua for last year and then the year before and the year before and it's like that kind of almost like inevitable like diet that you're going to go on that you know is not going to work but you're just going to do it because you tried it before and it's not going to work the next time either and and I feel that there needs to be something to break out of that cycle um what I'd like to suggest today is something a bit more proactive maybe rather than just trying to say well I'll try not to do that and I'll try not to do that I'll try not to do that but to do something a little bit different um and I want to make three suggestions about how we could maybe engage in something more proactive a uh uh a venture for the next year a challenge for the next year a task that we can take on um and you can choose if you like any of these three fine if you don't like them then uh you know find something else but I feel that there's a need to do something a little bit more proactive so let's have a look at this we have about 40 minutes and uh we we're not going to look at every single Source here but I'm going to suggest to you basically three three models for a proactive cha based in the rambam and based in Ru cook so the first thing I'd like to do is maybe just mention that we we look we need to look again at the concept of AA I don't like the word sin sin sounds terribly Catholic just like confession to break out of those those translations but at the end of the day we do feel think about AA about missing the mark also the idea of missing a Target in a very different way to Christianity and we're often I think overwhelmed with Christian overtones in the way we think about these things we regard AA sin as an inevitable reality of The Human Condition and therefore there's no there's no point feeling bad about the fact that in principle we do Aus it's built in it's baked in it's not something that ruined the system and I think that's very very important and if you're looking for a book that that really develops these ideas Rabbi doid bashevkin wrote a book a few years ago it's not new anymore but it's very much worth buying called sin goog it's a bit of a kichic title sinagogue okay um and I brought you a reference to it there sin and failure in Jewish thought and there he approaches many different paradigms of and Chua that we don't tend to study as much in the thought of reab nman of brov in kot inis in sod in ruk you see has AIC bent RAB bashevkin also has an excellent podcast which I'm sure many people are familiar with called 1814 18 and then f r t y where he interviews lots of very interesting guests about lots of topics and he has a lot to say about those things as well and one of the things that's flagged there is Source number one which when you think about it for a few minutes really changes our the whole way we look at this so if you look here in number one let's look with me together in sanedrin it's quite a well-known mid that first Friday that first y y uh the we had was a very very busy day and the midash goes through and says what was happening on that very first day that Friday when Man was created sh so the first hour of the day the beginning of the day so God collects all the materials obviously this is not none of this is meant to be physical literal it's meant to be representative of what's going on God collects the materials the raw materials to create Mankind shne in the second hour mankind is if you like is formulated and by the way there are many many different midrashic understandings as to how Adam and work were they created together were they created apart were they meant to be created apart and they were created together that's not our topic for today let's just take mankind as mankind man and woman so the third hour the mankind if you like was spread out the limbs were stretched out ready to go revered in the fourth hour of the day n the Nish was like injected almost like a an injection into the body uh and the mankind came alive in the fifth hour mankind was already up and about so the sixth hour he called the names of all of the different animals as it says in that that Adam named the different and in the sixth in the seventh hour Adam and K were introduced to each other as as partners in the eighth hour literally two went into bed and four came out meaning Cen and he were born as it were whatever this means mically speaking in that se in that eighth hour so now they're in the Garden of Eden in the ninth hour they were given the command don't eat from the tree in the 10th hour they ate from the tree didn't take them very long in the 11th Hour n they were judged in the 11th hour and in the in the 12th hour they were given their marching orders and off they go busy Friday you think your Fridays a busy okay this is busy Friday the point here though is that the sin the of Adam and K is not something that happened later to interrupt to destroy the paradise of Gan aen the of Adam and was part of the seven days of creation it's baked into creation it's not something that they did later and I brought you in the footnote there that the uh you know the dating of many of the Christian models actually understands that the the mankind came much later I brought here Archbishop James Usher that says the creation was on October the 28th 404 BC and the sin of Adam was on November the 10th whatever that means okay you know the point here is the Christians don't see sin as part of the makeup of creation but we really really do and even more remarkably look at this number two the the end the climax the CH climax of that we beg what are we trying to get back to we want to get back to that K moment I'm not talking about grape juice here okayish we want to be like adish we want to do Chua so that we can be like Adam but like Adam when and this is what it says we want to be back to the K which K the Kem of when we got thrown out we want to be like Adam and after the that's a remarkable thing the idea that you can start a game that we can mess it up and yet be able to start all over again to do Chua that's what we're trying to get to which is you would have thought that we'd want to be like Adam and before the that's not how it is and I brought you a line here from elel who says when he created man God gave him a secret and that secret was not how to begin but how to begin again and and therefore I think as a as a framing for this whole topic we maybe need to look again at AA as not not part of our inherent failing but as part of our inherent makeup um and obviously we can do better and we can correct and we can grow but the idea of being part of our Essence is I think baked into Jewish thought that's the first so now I want to present very briefly three different ways that maybe we can think more proactively about Chua and the first one is quite welln and I want to use R Aon lienin uh to to to to flesh this out a little bit is the idea of doing Chua to something and not simply Chua from something the rambam in hilas Chua pivots in the middle of hilas Chua which actually the middle of hilas Chua is where he talks about free will his philosophical section of Hil kashua but at the beginning he's giving a very classic idea of how we view Chua look at number four what is CH the first thing of Chu is I have to get rid of try and leave behind the a lot of people don't realize they often Trot out well what does the rambam say Chua is the classic three you have to regret what you did you have to confess what you did and you have to resolve for the future that's actually only chapter one of Hil cha in chapter two he adds a fourth element which is it's all very well regretting confessing and resolving but you have to actually do something to let go you have to change something do something different so it's not just going to repeat itself again but you're still moving away he should leave he should leave behind his way and then he gets into his three you have to regret what you did and confess what you did and resolve for the future so the in this moment could say yes that's a real tuba that's the beginning of H but by the end of hila the ramb must pivoted to something quite different turn over the page to page two please says the ramb in number five look how amazing CH is completely different Focus it's not you're trying to get away from something it's you're trying to get towards something it's m it brings you forward it brings you closer he says to the make CH towards go towards you have not yet come to me it's all it's all language of moving towards never not moving again away from we're not trying to leave behind if he says a person could do CH beat it back it's me that you're coming to says God it brings closer those who are far just yesterday this person was rejected before God M he was disgusting on some level Etc and I just brought you I'm not going to read all theim but 6 S8 and Nim from tanak from the na'vi that all talk about going away a cha away that's number six you have to get away from something number eight Etc but whereas 10 11 12 and 13 are the other kind of chuva the hasem you have to do Chua to shua eliu is AD etc etc and therefore clearly there are these two paradigms there's nothing new here this is quite well known that there are two types of chuva um and I brought you if if You' like to frame the question a small piece by uh Rabbi Tas here Rabbi Michael T in number 14 It's relatively easy to understand if not necessarily to accomplish what one must do to engage in the first type of CHA discussed here namely as outlined by the authorities to recognize one's transgression regret it verbalize his confession commit to avoid repeating it in the future what must be done however to achieve the goal of the second type of chuba establishing a closeness with Hashem is less obvious what exactly should one be doing in order to build this desired relationship the question is compounded by the fact that as indicated by Renu Yona one can be successful in terms of the first goal that is his past transgressions can be forgiven and any punishments previously deserved set aside but yet still not be anywhere near where he wants to be in terms of the connection to Hashem what then should this person be doing and I think that's an important thing for us to think about because we often really just get bogged down in the cha from and we don't actually engage proactively in the cha to because it's much more difficult and I brought you four or five quotes here from R of which we're not going to read all of them but he has a a very beautiful essay in which is reprinted in the in the Magid book repentance and return developing a teror personality and and I brought you a few extracts from this let's just look at a few together um and hopefully you'll be able to take this forward look look at more of what he says and see how it applies in your own life and your family life there is number 15 there is however an alternative form of CH which is not related directly to sin not an outgrowth of evil but rather one that takes place within a religious and spiritual vacuum it occurs not in the context of one's relation to God but rather within the context of a lack of relation to God in fact this type of tuver grows out of one's perception of that lack within this track a person is neither separated from God by a barrier constructed of sins nor does he cleave to God he is simply dis dissociated he's not engaged in agonized interlocking combat with God in a sort of hesel sty nor does he wrestle with his conscience rather he's oblivious and insensitive to the presence of God that being the case is Chua Bears a very different character it's not chuva in relation to sin but chuva in response to a life that is insensitive to sin God and one's relationship to him are not the focal points in one's life at the epicenter of his being but are most a kind of peripheral presence a set of parameters defining one's beings to the extent that there is a sin here it is the sin of of forgetting of being indifferent of being insensitive of being you know lacking in an awareness of what is even uh even not there in our lives and and he focuses in here because this is the community he's speaking to in number 17 to the religious Zionist community and the and what he calls the Centrist Orthodox Community the Yu Community we all we all know who he's talking to so look what he says in number 17 I believe that the sin lurking at the door of the Centrist Orthodox or religious Zionist Community the danger which confronts us and of which we need to be fully aware is precisely the danger of sh a forgetting of being unaware of being oblivious unlike other communities when he's talking obviously about the k Community this is a community which is not so susceptible to a VOD desora in his extension now again he's not saying everyone else is doing a Vora he's saying that there are other communities that see things in very clear black and white terms this is right this is wrong if you don't agree with me you're a heretic okay that's not who we he says are that's other people and in we don't have those challenges that black and white which can lead to ultimately to a very kind of fiery aod zaro that burns everything up attitudes the rambam battled against such as Superstition and gross or primitive conceptions of God because it meaning the modern Orthodox or religious SST Community is more sophisticated intellectually religiously philosophically unfortunately however if it is very very susceptible to the extended or lacking the imminent sense of God felt so deeply keenly and pervasively in other parts of the halachically committed Jewish World elsewhere he talks about and it's based in uh in alv Rabin nasan that you know reab nakan kind of has it but he wasn't the first to say it that we're walking down this narrow bridge and what's on either side of the bridge so one side is a Chasm which leads to Fire and the other side is is a Chasm which leads to ice and the danger on this bridge is you could fall over one side or the other the side that veers towards the fire let's call that the right wing is a side that veers towards aod zoraa whereas everything becomes more and more black and white clearer and clearer than everyone's in in or out it's very binary and that at the end of the day leads to a a he says a fire everything gets burnt up no one's good enough everybody's judged say the other side is the sin which he's saying is more likely to be the sin of the Centrist Orthodox Community it leads to a place of ice which is kind of a frozen C sort of ambivalence is like everything is a mlus at the end of the day you don't really know what God is at the end of the day what do you really saying when you even say the word God you don't really know we don't really know anything and that itself leads to a place of Frozen kind of heretical stasis he says obviously they're the extremes but they're extremes that we need to kind of balance and he's here saying that the Chua that the Rel the Centrist Orthodox religious zence community he says he's most focused on and he wrote this I don't know 20 years ago 30 years ago I don't think it's much different uh today is a cha which really needs to come closer to God to move towards it's a Chua towards not a cha away from as much the Centrist just end of number 17 the cist Orthodox Community is one to which the danger of distance from God is indigenous and endemic in part this is a result of the link this community has to some extent ideologically to some extent existentially to the broader General secular Community around it the secular world is by definition not so much a world of sin per se but a world of being distant from God of simply not recognizing him having no links and no relation it's very interesting when you look at the secular world so some parts of the religious community say a world of world of AA world of sin well that feeds exactly the same narrative whereas he's saying really we look at it as a word of distance and the more we connect with that outside world the more distant we ourselves become um look at number 18 and then we'll move on we need to be aware of this sin at our door because only to the extent that we're aware of it we'll be able to cope with it if we're to engage in cha that is particularly relevant to ourselves it is perhaps even more than the Chua of repentance which is at the context of our relationship with God but it's the cha of return now how do you do this I'm not entirely sure but I want to make a suggestion I I was listening I find myself also you know challenged very much in this area I'm a bit of a litvac and it's everything's kind of rational and Etc and I think that there are uh real uh Avenues which are open to us now to to to deepen that sense of movement towards I listen to a podcast recently um by Rabbi Scott Khan he has a podcast called the Orthodox conundrum I'm sure many people are familiar with it very very interesting uh I don't always agree with everything that's said there but like that's fine he doesn't care whether I agree or not I was actually interviewed on his podcast I didn't even agree with everything I said on his podcast but uh but but that's a separate issue um but he interviewed Rabbi David Aron um and I I I I read Rabbi eron's books or some of them many years ago and I just happen to be listening to this podcast and he's just so infectious with a sense of love a sense of connection a sense of wanting to talk talk about God wanting to be involved in thinking about God and not being bogged down in the well you don't know really what you're talking about philosophically and and therefore I think one of the things that one could do if one wanted to do is really dive deep into Rabbi eron's material read his books listen to his podcasts read his stuff online Etc and and he speaks a different kind of language which I think is the language that Rabbi Rin is is trying to ask us to speak a little bit more um and I think that's one area that one could really proactively engage in more God talk I I like the fact that uh he mentioned there that what did the Babylonian amim call God what was their name for God and the answer was Rah if you said AB instead of you say it's actually then you made the because is the name of God the loving one the loved one how often do we relate to God even the word god is so Laden with connotations which maybe don't help us in this area um but Rahman is a different kind of thing so again I I don't know whether you need to become Aid or walk Barefoot through the forest that's not you don't have to do that to be aid but what I'm just saying but I think this is an area where one could really make a resolution that one's whole life one's not really been connected with this area of Torah this is the year to do it this is the year to really throw oneself in as I said at the beginning to these alternative narratives ofas of C of sh of R of luin which is remarkable Etc so that's one suggestion suggestion number two let's look at RAV cook a very different suggestion turn to page four please so RAV cook obviously has a lot to say about a lot of different things and I want to just focus on one thing that he talks about which is the importance of learning cabala of learning a system gosh of learning A system that will link up all of the details that will give us a structure that will help us to fit all of the particular aspects of Judaism which are in our lives into something which fits together in a in a much bigger way I once heard from Rabbi tats many years ago something similar to this where he said one of the challenges that we have is that you know Tor is called an eight it's called a tree and a tree is a very organic by definition structure it has a a trunk it has branches subbranches Twigs leaves and the leaves themselves have the most beautiful delicate structures fractal structures often and what we often see when it comes to Judaism is is random leaves certainly when I teach students that came out of high school and the truth is After High School for most people there's like a three or four year window where you can really get to grips with these things and then you just get kind of frozen into wherever you were before and you can break out of that but it's hard but we tend to see little leaves all over the place there's a detail here there's a detail there there's a detail here there's a detail there having a system that can actually put that together and see a structure how everything is connected I remember he told me that they used to go to a shra of Simas on Nazi shabas I think he said he was and rasman used to say to the guys what do you want to talk about so one guy would say I want to talk about uh why good things happen to bad people and why bad things happen to good people okay and one person would say I want to talk about the status of uh mats on second day yon in you know I just make that up whatever they would all talk about some completely disperate thing and rasan would say give a Shear that connected all of the parts and when they asked him like how did you do that he says well I just looked at where each detail was on that tree of a Torah and I talked about I talked about the one thing which was the point at which they all intersected the point that that they all came out of and and that obviously covers all of them now to have that kind of structure in front of you is a wonderfully inspirational thing but it's very hard to get so have a look at what Rook says here in number 20 the of the generation leading up to Mah this is a very big theme in cook it's not because they've sunk to a low level it's because they're already on a higher level and the people the young people especially around us are no longer satisfied with the kind of trit Torah that we sometimes give out they need something more they need something better they demand to understand how do all the details connect with the general principles the because no detail which is left unconnected with a structure is ever going to really satisfy you it's always going to leave you with a feeling of it's just like a detail these rabbis they just got so bogged down in detail details and that's frustrating and and by the way the church has been throwing this at us as an accusation for Millennia that you're you're too bogged down in the details and sometimes we really hear that and Rook says they yes because we need a structure if we could just he said get to a Torah the Torah that you can really grow a soul from if we could just see all the connections with the specifics and the details then CH real CH and a universal Improvement in the whole world that comes with it and through that that would be you be able to realize that you've got to get past the details the important details but you got to see the structure let's carry on we're just going to read this Source in deta however T so because we've been negligent we've been lazy and as Educators sometimes that this inner Torah that needs that requires it demands its own elevation is not being brought out in the world appropriately that's why this claim this demand for structure for is is coming out where all the details fit into a super structure and that hasn't happened yet and this leads to a terrible devastation in people's spiritual lives we need to have a a system a a cure we need to find a spiritual cure we have to give a we have to give an injection to the spiritual um if you like Drive of people so that all the details in our life all the details in our thought processes will be will be presented in a way which is straight forward which we understand which in a way which people normal regular people understand not some huting uh deeply complex uh 50-year lim but something people people can understand but as that will rejuvenate life spiritual life and then a real Chu a real genuine Chua like we said before a Chua to will be able to bear fruit and and later he talks about the the the one way of doing this is by learning cabala and sometimes I feel we we we sort of take the easy route on cabala and I I mean I'm speaking to you as someone who is never really grappled seriously with Cala although has got more into it over the last few years um you don't have to be over 40 and and even if you did that's not necessarily a problem for everybody in this room you don't have to be over 40 to learn cabala and you don't have to be flying through the air or whatever you think cabala is a system which uh is now available to us there are many many uh excellent resources on this online in books many re that teach this uh it's not an esoteric topic anymore and therefore RAV cook is urging us to engage people with even though paint these in a in these are the deepest most esoteric Secrets the the secrets of Creation The Secrets of the Chariot ofal so ruk says that's only if you're applying them in a practical level practical cabala we're not trying to do practical cabala and cure people and heal people people or whatever you think practical cabala is he says today in our world da we need that kind of complexity that kind of learning and he gives a call in his number 22 he says he's calling out to all the teachers all the people who represent all you teachers people who are influenced we are the ones who have sinned we have learned or I think he means we taught the we've given all our and our and all these wonderful things we've written and we've designed new structures in we've forgotten about God and the power of God we haven't listened to the Nim um and he goes on to talk about the idea of bringing out the r Torah the secrets of Torah the the the cabalistic Torah and if you just turn to page five just for a second uh he has a uh he talks about a weariness that comes out of of of dry narrow Torah he talks about and in the source the large source that we didn't look at in depth he talks about a sort of uh desiccation that people just learn gamorra and gamorra and gamorra and gamorra and gamarra and he says you need to learn that stuff but it's it's it's you can't be the the sum total of what you're learning it'll just leave you dry and then eventually the going from being dry you'll become angry and bitter and negative and he he charts the whole course of what we see in front of our eyes that people are just not getting the cpuk not getting the Torah that they really need to take them through and actually very interestingly RAV cook turned to publicizing cabala when he was in the middle of a terrible War Ral cook was in London in 1916 and 1917 I'm not going through the whole story of how he was stranded there but he was uh he was the Rob of the aimul in in the East End of London which is now mosque but that's a story of how Anglo Jury has moved on or or England has moved on I should say and the Jews with it um but he he he they were being bombed they were being bombed aerial bombardments from Zeppelins and and all of that kind of stuff that the Germans had and he was sitting in the cellar of the eight of the makik not the makik in the East End and and he writes there and I put a couple of quotes on page five life has plummeted to pits teeming with the darkest evil and ruin it's hard for us to remember remember quite how devastating the first world war was for the Jewish community and the general community in Europe because we now see the first world war through the prism of the second world war which obviously was unimaginable in the first world war but in the first world war Jewish communities were and general communities in Europe were dislocated in the most difficult and horrendous ways 60-some thousand men were killed just on the first day of the battle of the S it it's almost impossible to get your mind around that and this is what was filtering back to people back home and and he basically says their regular Torah study just doesn't do it he says regular Torah addresses the laws of a functioning and orderly Society but it's tone deaf to the imbalance and anxiety of a terrifying and chaotic world you need a different kind of Torah if you're living in a war you just can't Trot out the same thing and therefore R cook says we need to return to what he calls tah anista um the Torah of cabala and that's where he wrote in London he wrote is Rin his safer on the mystical meanings of the letters of the alipate he didn't he didn't write it when he was sitting in ER Israel imbibing the a ER Israel he sat writing it in the East End under bombardment from Zeppelins dropping bombs on his because he said I just can't learn regulator now I have to learn something else and therefore I think the second possible thing we might do this year is say this is the year when we're really going to get to grips with what is cabala it's a big system out there it's obviously got a lot to say uh do we really understand it if we think we don't like it do we we really understand what we don't like uh and maybe that's something that will take us in a different direction and leave us next year uh in a rather different position than we find ourselves this year so that's my suggestion number two the rav cook is saying get a system see the bigger picture join up all the leaves to something which is more systemic and and in that sense much more satisfying third option completely different well maybe it's not completely different but it's it it comes across as different when the rambam talks about Chua he is very keen to stress that we can't just do chuva for our actions we need to do Chua for our mind we need to get our mind into a different gear and that has all sorts of of of applications uh 25 is quite a famous Source 25 passage from hilas Chua where he says we don't just have to do Chua for our actions but all our our inclinations if we get too angry or if we're too greedy or if we're too jealous etc etc all of these are things which we need to do chubba for because at the end of the day the mindset the psychology is what's driving the actions and if you can't change the psychology then you're not going to have much luck with the actions and okay that's easier said than done I think we know that to be true and he says this is the hardest thing of all uh to actually uh change this but the posic he gives is V elhem he says that's more of a proactive tuver of changing one's mindset but he goes further he basically says that we can actually change our mindset to have a deeper understanding of everything we do let's look at number 26 for a second a person has to try and get their mind in a different gear later so that they understand it's that God is really everything the sh and and when we sit when we stand when we speak it it it has that God Focus Kate said what do I mean he says when you do your business when you're in the shop when you're working in the office as a lawyer or whatever you are or or you're earning your living that don't just say well I need I need I need money I need to ear a living have a he says that you're doing this for a higher need you you need to buy food because the work is enabling you to gain the things that you need in life which are things that enhance your life enormously your family the house that you live in the community Etc again no big Kim here but it's a mindset he says when you're eating and drinking or engaged in sexual life to say oh this I love this honey I love this you know cereal and I really like having these relationships da da da because you like it but do it because it it's good for your body it's good for your health it's good for your relationship it's good for your mind for your mentality for your Psych meaning have that higher level of intention in the things that we do and and he actually spells this out in a much more detailed way we're going to see inim in a second and this is also true and here is more ofes in ourv because he says it's not just good enough to do the Mitzvah we owe it to ourselves to understand why we're doing the Mitzvah a mitzvah for the rambam is instrumental it's not end in itself and this is where actually he'll differ from the cabalists in a significant way because the cabalists will say that shaking a lulav is going to do something in the in the cosmic realm which is going to make that difference the shaking itself makes the difference and the rambam as a rationalist will say no shaking the lulav will help you get your mind in the right gear where you'll have a deeper understanding of reality and a closer connection with God but the Mitzvah is a means to an end look in Number 27 consequently he says is a cause for every commandment every positive or negative precept serves a useful object in some cases the usefulness is evident EG the prohibition of murder and theft in others the usefulness is not so evident EG the prohibition of enjoying the fruit of a tree at the first three years or of a Vineyard in which other seeds have been growing those Commandments whose object is generally evidently called Bish and those whose object is not generally clear is called thus they say in relation to the words of Moses it is no who this week's para coming up it's not an empty thing and Kaz say it is not in vain and if it is in vain if you don't know why you're doing it it's only so through you it's because you don't know why you're doing it so learn why you're doing it that is to say the giving of these Commandments is not a vain thing without any useful objects and if it appears so to you in any commandment it is due to the deficiency in your comprehension and therefore he enjoins us he encourages us he he he he excites us about what he calls which is more philosophical which is do we get our head around the underlying meanings of why we do the Mitzvah we do and there are many places we can look for this we can look in theim which you know we've just been quoting and which we'll quote in a minute we can look in r i remember when I was a student I brought so and gave me or I bought myself a copy ofv when's the last time you readv it's it's a big thick read and it you know the English translation is a bit like the German very long sentences and all that but at the end of the day it's a really inspirational really exciting book because RAV H presents in the 19th century a rereading of mitzvot explaining why they make sense to a modern person and much of what RAV H says in the 19th century speaks to us still as moderns in the 21st but of course Rabbi saaks and others have gone past that and taken that into the modern era as well but this idea that mitzvot are not an end in themselves but are means to an end is actually I think a very important thing and I brought you here in Source 28 which I'm I'm going to finish with we'll finish in a few minutes um he goes through quite famously he says there are actually four levels which turn out to be five of of personal Perfection and he says you really need to kind of put a bit of thought into this we need to really have a plan as to how we're going to do this and he has to be done in order he says first of all he says we've got to get our money in order because if our money's all over the place and we can't make a living and and things are very difficult then we're not going to have the brain to focus Etc so obviously this is often very difficult but he says first of all we got to get our our financial life in order then he says the second kind of perfection is to get our physical life in order like he says don't just eat the foods that you think are tasty but eat the foods that are healthy and get yourself into some kind of regime which is going to make you healthy in body healthy in mind that is a necessary prerequisite to even doing the Mitzvah then he says when you're getting into the Mitzvah actually understand what the Mitzvah are for what they're doing what they're trying to produce what they're aiming for how are they trying to move you in what direction why you're doing them and the reason the next level is because the next level of perfection is intellectual Perfection learn and let me just read this The Fourth Kind The Fourth Kind of perfection is the True Perfection of man the possession of the highest intellectual faculty the possession of such Notions which lead to the true metaphysical opinions as regards God what does that mean in real time let's say there are 25 Big M Israel issues issues in Jewish thought and we kind of have a vague feeling of we understand more or less what they are what is God's Providence and and what is God's knowledge and what does it mean God is one and what does it mean that God has no body etc etc do we really have a really strong understanding on each one of these that someone says to us well what does the Torah say about this okay there are four opinions on this issue there's the this and the and there's the ran there ran and then you have like a a neatly packaged bit of your brain where this part of Mich is fits into and you can get it out when you need it that's a great thing it's not rocket science you just have to do it if it if it interests you and he's saying that's what he wants you to do he wants you to move to that intellectual Perfection where you've really got your head around some of these issues okay you won't come to clear answers that's okay you don't need to have clear answers you need to have a clear structure in a sense it's also presenting a structure but differ of cabala different kind of structure and he says at the end of the day the true true True Perfection and this is where people get the rambam wrong he's not just a brain in a box he doesn't want you to be an intellectual in an ivory Tower so you look in the last paragraph in 28 the prophet doesn't content himself with explaining the knowledge of God is the highest level of perfection he says however the man can only glory in the knowledge of God in the knowledge of his ways and his attributes his actions and therefore copying God Mish St but doing it having built up all these levels of perfection Financial physical Mitzvah intellectual and then actually being to live a life which is of of mirroring God's actions and therefore I I this third suggestion is that maybe this is the year that we finally get our head around is in all its excitement in all its complication because you know unless you set out to do it then it'll never happen so I've given you three ideas maybe these are just my personal the ideas that excite me and you can go away and say well I listen to Manning and that's all very well three ideas left me cold but you know something it could be this one this one this one and this one okay go for it that's great but the three ideas I've suggested here is either this could be a year of thinking more about kidas more about God more about connection with God and I mentioned Rabbi David Aaron and getting into his work and he's just like a a gateway to a whole world of that kind of understanding that's one possibility a second one is a this is the year we're going to get into Jewish mysticism into cabala to really understand what it means it's not just shallow it's not just what maybe think it means this is the year for that or maybe this is the year that we get really into M stal and there are so many things that we can learn and the most scary of all perhaps is that this piece of black plastic uh that you carry around with you has most of the answers like to what you're trying to learn just on here uh so you know we can't even go to shamim after 120 years and say well I didn't have a school I didn't have a class it's all on here folks sorry um so not all but but a lot of it so anyway these these are some thoughts uh as we go into into the the Y it should be a year of renewal nationally it should be a year of for all of am Israel and everyone should get the Yeshua and the hatah that they need in every aspect of of their lives and uh we should have a and we should be able to meet next year and say we've achieved some of the things we set out to achieve this year and we're going going to go even higher thank you R sh and thank you again [Music]